Приманивание Снарка.

I have now completed three different versions of the secret ending and screencapped a lot of the results. It's interesting what does and does not work that way.

... my achievements did not work. I still don't know why. I was liking how it would give little trophies when I did the fiddly things.

I can start again at a higher difficulty level and probably will, but given how thorough I've been with achievements in the main game now, I won't know if it'll give me any until the actual last The End. I would have to find harder games intrinsically motivating. I shall have to ponder.

Meanwhile I started a new go at Inevitable Excess with the secret ending character (Belmor, tiefling witch Angel, a combination with no synergy, where aasimar oracle angel would have kicked almighty arse) in the hopes it'll actually give me the Hard gear if I do the challenge on Hard this time. Going to Unfair seemed a bit much but I can try it later if I want. But then I remembered I do not actually like the game play in Inevitable Excess. It just makes annoying things fiddly. It's worse than Enigma for that, changing the way you have to move around even, boring and lots of trying to find the right pixel to get it to agree with you.

So I have stopped playing the game at a mere two in the morning.

And then got distrated looking up builds and being baffled by what they consider to be min maxing. Unfair must have very different numbers than the ones I had fun wiping just now.

Boring day, need a new plan now victory was achieved.

I did watch Labyrinth for Halloween. ... I had forgotten the subtitles on the DVD version I have are so inadequate. Proper subtitles say exactly what the characters are saying, but these make the grammar all tidy and 'correct' and make messes of what is actually said.. Also they don't subtitle the songs. In a musical. So I was looking for a more recent version but HMV says it will be back in stock soon, which may or may not mean it exists there. Shall see. Very good movie though.

Then I reckoned I'd just get the first bit of Threshold done in Wrath of the Righteous. Sure it was nearly midnight but I could do the preparatory battles.

... it is about 7am and I have beaten the whole thing, including the boss battles I've never tried before.

I did not actually get the version of the secret ending I actually wanted. I had it all ready but found the last page of dialogue unclear and picked one that wasn't it. So I shall have to replay those last boss battles when I have had some sleep, then see what happens with the right dialogue options.

But I won again :-D



The difficulty curve is weird. At the start I could barely drag the characters through the Core difficulty fights and had actually given up on a previous attempt. Playing for achievements led to having another proper go. But then by the end we were not only winning, we were winning without the rest that would let us even use Mythic 10, because I didn't see how it was logical for my characters to go have a nap just because it would fill their mythic spell slots. And I'm not sure anyone got injured in the very final battle, we just won.

Granted I had done something very weird in the arena so Arueshalae had stupendous ability boosts, but we also did survive doing something very weird in the arena and having to fight everyone at once, so, earned it.

I don't know what the next difficulty up will be like, but on Core there is very very little that actually gives pause to a 20th level adventurer.

Which is neat, but weird when it was such a slog to get there.

Almost like all the effort pays off in the end.


I shall probably replay the ending very soon, but after that I need to find something else to do rather than turning right around and bumping the difficulty up for the next run.

... something that isn't rereading the paper version of the adventure too...

... about the right time of year to try a writing project actually, that might be neat...

(watch me feeling confident for I have mastered another difficulty level in the one game I play)

I won :-D

A sensible person would take breaks from this game.
... it is three in the morning and I have played Wrath of teh Righteous a Lot.

But the only thing left to do in the game is to win it, so.

I finished the Dance of Masks DLC. I would like my achievements for it, because I did them all on Core now, which was not simples. But it hasn't been giving me achievements. Which is a worry because if I win this on Core and it decides not to know that? I will be so very very deeply displeased. I will grump for ages.

But! The festival bit of the DLC was fun, and I liked how it was mostly dealing with the party having trauma, because theme. I also liked the happy bonus content when romancing Ulbrig. ( Read more... )

After that though there was the bit that is the reason I've never got around to trying for the secret ending: ( Read more... )

So I got the tedious bit all done and it took way longer than I imagined.

But the game is all saved and set ready to win next time I play.


... I should have a day off, but I have met me, and this seems unlikely.

I really like winning this game.

I have done all the Festival bit of the DLC, including all the arena has to offer.
Played a bit later than I intended but around the time I was planning to sleep I was instead stuck in a rolling battle that just kept getting worse. I was thinking I did not know how to survive it but if I did survive it I would have bragging rights forEVER.

Details under the cut: ( Read more... )

So that was the kind of very exciting computer game day where you spend a lot of it going
yikes yikes yikes yikes
and trying to figure out what is going on because there's too many overlapping graphics on the screen and it is lagging so so bad
but then I won
so now it is fun excite again.

Pretty good apparently nine hours today.



... now if it only gives me my achievements that'll be grand. I got one of the ones I earned yesterday but it hasn't pinged up the second from yesterday or any today.

If I lose the achievement for finishing on Core I shall be very, very, very annoyed.

... but I do seem to be kicking its butt on Core.

Wrath of the Righteous: I managed to quit before midnight, by all of five minutes, but I got all the way through the Midnight Isles DLC and won it. I think I got two new to me achievements, but they're not going ping until I load the game again, which would be counterproductive when I need dinner and sleep. But I did win a fight I hadn't tried before, and got the happyish ending gated behind it. I would not consider kicking someone's arse to be a road to their redemption but the game apparently does. Confronting him with his own choices, sort of thing. So it's a good ending, and it got good loot from talking to the Helmsman after the fight, Tomes and Manuals. It took me three tries I think, and one time the KC died before I noticed they were in trouble. I had to sleep and pile on cooking bonuses and Guarded Hearth and make sure I had stocked up on Mass Heal. Daeran would have been really handy but I was seeing how it works without him. Poorly, as it happens, but we can win.

I need sleep now.

Today I did excellent achievements: correctly did Cleaner Day, ran the dishwasher, did a load of laundry (the color catcher came out black but I can't see a difference in the actual laundry do I'm calling it Fine), and successfully quit playing Wrath of the Righteous for the day when I realised I was super extra bored.

... there's a reason I leave the Midnight Isles for almost last, and have not done the achievements on the standalone part. It's just one long fight. And I have been winning everything except the boss parts by just leaving my characters on automatic and changing up Ember's spell when she runs out at that level. Sosiel isn't even doing anything, I have him focused to summon things and I have just not got around to it. His bear is AC 68 right now and nothing much touches that, so the fights just happen without summons. It's fine.

Until it isn't, and then I had to ressurect Ember and Arurshalae. Stupid humming rocks. Petrification isn't fixable by ressurection so actually Ember needed Stone to Flesh. But still, that fight was just running itself, I could do better on turn based.

I could do better if I put back in some of the times it pauses, but at the moment fiddling with that screen is my best guess on why my Core achievements haven't worked on some DLC, so I am leaving it be. I am thisclose to finishing on Core. I shall do turn based like a grown up instead. Or just keep spending diamonds on the errors.

Many things done and the DLC quest played up to end of what should have been last Act.

Logically when I pick it up again it should get challenging.

Today on Wrath of the Righteous I did not get as far as I had hoped. Also I think one Leadership thing is bugged, since it reckoned I had to come back urgently to deal with it and then didn't do anything about it for a month. It's fine, it says I maxed out Leadership anyways, it should work okays.

Chilly Creek and the Sarkorian couple both worked fine, as did the Heart of Mystery eventually, but then I went to do Nenio's questline and realised I had not done one thing from back in Act 3 and I had to go do it over again, which was somehow embarrassing. Look at me, Knight Commander of the 5th crusade, redoing ny homework because I didn't press a button right. Eh, it's fine, they're doing the quest properly now. Also with all the buffs on we seem to be immune to... damage, basically. Getting hit, in general. Anything getting through without a critical fail on the saves. It's interesting but also boring to play. No stakes, just let it run on auto and they'll win in a few seconds. Daeran hasn't had to heal anyone for ages. Plus I leave Nenio to last because I've never seen an explanation for the stupid puzzles that actually makes sense so I just have to make them match the pictures and that isn't puzzle solving. I am not a fan of the stupid things at all at all. So I now appear to be grumpy. Ah well.

Clocks went back and I have updated my home clocks already.

Pretty okay day.

Today was a successful Cleaner Day and an okay day of Wrath of the Righteous.
The Core difficulty continues to be frustratingly lumpy.
I only needed two goes at Iz because the first go had everyone in the wrong formation and the one with the midnight bolt died immediately. I haven't had as much practice at the Iz boss fight because of the time when I one shot him with Daeran doing Dismissal. Like that was a very cool win but it taught me nothing.
I didn't actually set out to do Iz that time, I went for the Falls and then realised it was sitting right there and it seemed churlish to not go pick up the Queen when it was that simple.
I did the Angel myth path challenge next and the actual required part was fine, easy even, but there was one of those stupid big purple rocks and that took three tries and a ridiculous strategy. (It is impossible to beat subsonic hum, but a Heal spell with fix everyone stunned by the hum. So keep Daeran out of range, let Ember into range to Hellfire it, summon everything you can handily achieve, elemental swarm worked great, let the summons take the actual damage and hedge the rock in, then Heal Ember and let her kaboom it. Works if and only if the initiative order goes just right. Stupid rocks are the only thing that's actually challenging on this part of this difficulty. But we're about to hit level 20 so soon if the game gets more difficult we don't get any better to face it. Shall see.)
Now I didn't mean to do the Prison but it landed right in front of me so okay, guess I'm going to try it with this random half dozen.
Gave up for the night because I am sure I saved it but it did not act saved when I quick loaded. Time to get some sleep and hope it behaves itself when it wakes up.

Core was so difficult to start with I gave up repeatedly, but at this end there just isn't much that can land a hit on a 19th level adventurer, and whatever does, Daeran can fix it.
Now if I can just figure out how to get Woljif to hit on less than a 20 it'll be golden...